Lennard J. Davis: Hillbilly Elegy is an example of ‘poornography,’ in which the rich try to speak on behalf of the poor
JD Vance has climbed to his current position as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, in part, by selling himself as a hillbilly, calling on his Appalachian background to bolster … Continue reading
Liz Theoharis & Shailly Gupta Barnes: The Christian Nationalist Vision for America
Project 2025: A New Pax Romana.
Jason Irwin: A Slice of the American Dream
After my parents’ divorce was made official and my mother was forced to return to the workforce, we suddenly were labeled low-income.
Patrick Henry: How Dorothy Day found her calling while fighting the 1918 flu pandemic
Dorothy Day’s nine months as a nurse at the height of a pandemic that killed 50 million people, deepened her commitment to the poor, homeless and abandoned.
James Wright: A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
James Crews: Homeless
How do you pack up a whole house,
help your parents haul your toys thrown
in boxes from the liquor store, stuff them
in the back of the car in the middle
of the night because they can’t afford
to pay the rent they owe?
Arlene Weiner | Dear Editor:
We’ve subscribed to your magazine for a long time. We remember your recommendations for canned tomatoes and comparison of the nutritive value of brands of store bread, when those were … Continue reading
Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat on the floor.
Corrine Clegg Hales: Her Husband Wants Her Back
Marge has run again, hiding out
at one neon motel after another
with her three small children.
Sandy Solomon: Casual Labor
The man at the front door wants work,
any job. Hand on the knob, I start
to turn him down, to swing the door’s weight
to, but then I consider my mother’s mother.
Rev. William J. Barber II, Karen Dolan: This is an Election Americans Cannot Afford to Lose
The stakes for America’s poor and low-income families are huge this election.
Jane Taylor: Poverty
O then, let the wealthy and gay
But see such a hovel as this,
That in a poor cottage of clay
They may know what true misery is.
Thomas W. Fraser: Overcoming Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘three evils of society’
We can still bend the arc of history through a ceaseless pursuit of beloved community.
